


To Wish Impossible Things

by astrothsknot



Series: No More I Love Yous [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Gen, I found this on my computer and I quite like it, Sometimes I write romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 04:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10564023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrothsknot/pseuds/astrothsknot
Summary: Closure's for doors





	

PG13 language and themes  
Gen

When I see you again, will it be over? When I see you again, will it be the same?

I’m sure that's a song, but I can’t remember who by or what it sounded like. I can only really remember those lines. And of course they’re shit. If it wasn’t over, you’d not need to ask the question. And if you’re not together how can it be the same?

We haven’t been together in over nine years. It doesn’t feel like it. It only feels like yesterday. And I still know what she’s been getting up to, I stayed in touch with Scotty. Not in the same way she did, of course, they stayed close friends, but I'm just the ex-boyfriend. Joke is we’ve all known each other the same length of time. Thirteen fucking years.

This is a stupid idea. I don’t know why or who suggested it. I know that she was reluctant. So am I. But it’s either this or my wife will leave me. Yeah, that was it. It was the marriage guidance counsellor who suggested it.

I have to get her out my system, and I can only do that if I see her again. So says the theory.

I only agreed because I never thought that Carlotta would. Scotty had suggested a reunion, forming a new band before, and she’d always rejected the idea. Said the past should be left in the past.

The waiter has brought me another drink, just coke. I don’t want to be drunk if she turns up. I don’t know why that matters, it just does. I badly want a cigarette, but smoking in public is illegal here, now. A polite cough interrupts me, and there she is. 

Carlotta. 

She looks good. Maybe a little heavier than the last time I'd seen her, some lines around the eyes. Actually, that’s not true. The lines don’t stay when the expression goes, but they leave a clue as to what they will be. Crows feet and laugh lines look different. Carlotta is heading for the latter.

She’s not wearing any make up. And her hair doesn’t match her eye colour. “It didn’t last time either,” she says, following a train of thought in that uncanny way she has. 

“True,” I reply. “It was purple. You don’t wear your contacts any more?”

“God, no,” she replies. “Too much hassle running round after 3 kids, two dogs and a hamster.”

“I always preferred your glasses anyway.”

“So I remember.” She shifts track, serious. “I got your card and the money for Christian. I should have thanked you, but I didn’t know what to say, and then it was too late. But thank you.”

“I understand.” I don’t really, but there’s not much else to say on the matter, except, “can I see pictures of the kids?”

“I’ve actually just picked some up from being developed.” She fishes them out of a huge rucksack, and I look at them, just typical family snapshots, of days out, kids doing or making kids things. Carlotta is only in one of the 40 photos. The rest is of a good looking man in his late thirties/early forties, two dogs, both of which are Labrador mixed with something else, and three boys, who look to be nine, four, and two. They all have her mouth, and dimple. The two youngest look like their father. I look at the eldest for a moment. He doesn’t look like her, or his brothers, so it’s likely that he does also look like his father, whoever the hell that is. He sure as hell doesn’t look like me.

I leaf through more smiling happy photos of the kids that should have been mine. Then I pass them back. “So you did up that house in Callander?”

“Yeah. I hear you have a nice house out on Long Island. And you got married.”

I look at her. There is no guile. She isn’t just making conversation while I get to the point, she’s genuinely interested. That was one of her charms, she could talk to anyone. She is the ideal listener.

“Yeah,” I reply, guardedly. What right do I have to burden this woman who I can almost recognise as the great love from my past with the troubles of my future? And yet....

Carlotta is the one person who will listen, and not judge either of us, because she has no interest in whether my marriage fails or not. It makes no odds to her. And I never have to see her again after this, so none of what I tell her can turn around and bite me on the ass.

“How long has it been?” She asks.

“What?”

“How long have you been married?”

“Two years.”

“Left it kind of late, didn’t you?” The waiter has come over and she’s asked for a pot of tea.

“I didn’t plan it, just worked out that way.”

“Which, getting married or waiting so long?”

“Both.” I take the plunge. “That’s kinda why we’re here. It’s going through a bad patch -”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“And the therapist thinks it's because I have some unresolved issues, that I need to deal with.”

“And I’ll assume from the fact that I'm here the issues are with me?” Carlotta looks angry, hurt, like I've tricked her somehow, when she trusted me. 

Well, enjoy Honey. I spent 4 years wearing that look. 

She puts down the bread stick very carefully, picks up her back and gets up. She’s leaving! Shit, she’s leaving!

I chase her to the door. Christ, she still walks fast. I grab her arm, spinning her round to face me. “How dare you?” She hisses. “If your wife doesn’t trust you, then it’s your problem! I haven’t seen you in nine years? How dare you blame me for your bad marriage!”

Will your very best friend, your very best friend have been replaced by some other?

“I’m not.” And then I know that she’ll sit down. Before it would have been because she wanted to see how she was the centre of attraction. The effect she had upon everyone.

Don’t they say every criminal returns to the scene of the crime.

Now, I don’t know why she sits, but she does.

“I don’t agree with your counsellor. I think the past should be left in the past.”

“I agree with you. Maybe just seeing you again will get my wife off my back.” I pour the tea for her. She refuses milk and sugar. “You still drink that?”

“I always did prefer pure.” There’s a twinkle in her eye. “So how exactly is it my fault that your marriage is on the ropes?”

I open my mouth to protest, then shut it again. She wouldn’t be here if everything was fine and dandy. “Being honest?”

“Kind of pointless otherwise.”

“ ‘My marriage never stood a chance because you’re the one that got away, and she feels that she’s just a chapter in someone elses’ love story.’ That’s what the therapist says anyway.” I glance at her briefly, but don’t meet her eyes.

“What’s she like?” Asks Carlotta.

“My wife or the shrink?”

“Wife, dickhead.” She begins working her way through the cookies on the plate. “She sounds really insecure.”

“I suppose she is. Puts up with my shit though, and that can’t be easy.” I think for a moment. “She’s called Gillian.”

“Kids?”

I shake my head. “Not for the want of trying. We’ve been through IVF, and all that.”

“IVF? It’s a bitch, innit?” Carlotta looks really concerned.

“You?” I splutter. “But how? I mean, it was you getting knocked up by someone else in the first place that caused all the shit!”

Carlotta shrugs. “Funny that, yeah? But no, my two youngest are IVF. Just wasn’t happening, money wasn’t a problem so we just had it done. We were lucky that it took, but it still took about three implantations for that to happen.”

“What, with each?” 

“Yep.” She nods, sympathetic. “Not the most pleasant of experiences, for either of you.”

“No. I felt a failure. Couldn’t get any of my women pregnant, and then I get cut out of the deal altogether.” It was the first time I'd really talked about it with anyone. 

“It’s so technological, isn’t it, all the while you’ve got to be strong for her, because she’s the one having all the hormones and treatments -”

“And I feel like shit because she’s going through this and I can’t, and I don’t want to see her in so much pain, but I have to be there because it’s the closest I'll get to it all. Him or you?” I ask suddenly.

“What?” She’s been nodding in agreement all this time.

“Was the problem him or you?” I need to know that. I don’t know why.

“Me. Bad labour with Christian, needed a section, it got infected, blocked the tubes. They were all sections.” She gives the information matter-of-factly.

“I’m the problem. I gotta have them take it right out my balls, and inject it into the egg.” I don’t know why, but I say it defiantly. 

Carlotta laughs out loud. “Still not backwards in coming forwards, are you?” 

“Call a spade a spade.”

Only way to be. We speak for a little more about IVF in all its glory. I can’t really remember what we say, but it has the effect of breaking the awkwardness that had been there before. It isn’t just like old times, but it isn’t far off.

I watch her as she speaks. She's always been one of those folk you’d never noticed in a room, but somehow never forgot. She’d always been surprised by those whom she couldn’t remember, but they remembered her, and she’d done nothing other than say hello in the lunch queue. I think we’d probably split this bill.

On a whim I ask her, “How did you meet Robert?”

Carlotta doesn’t skip a beat. “Roy. I saw his picture on the fridge of a friend of a friend at a party, and he’d long hair in it. He came to the party a little later, and he’d cut his hair, and the first thing I said was “it really suits you, but it’d look better with blond tips.” We started talking and that it was it. That was six years ago.”

“How long you been living together?” I already know that she will say six years. I smile and nod when she does. “Did he get his hair done?”

“Yeah, he did. True love, eh? What about you? How did you meet -”

“I bought a parrot, and she was the pet shop owner.” She must have shagged him the night she met him. She did the same with me. “That was three years ago.”

Carlotta nods. “What did you call the parrot?”

“Charlie.”

“That was original.”

“I liked the name. He talks. Sings your songs a lot.”

She pours yet more tea. “Well, they do say that parrots can follow women and kids’ voices more easily, something to do with the pitch of the voice. Is it an African Grey?”

“Yeah. I did think about one of those blue macaws, but I kinda liked the grey.” I don’t tell her it had been humming one of the songs that she’d written for another artist, and I - though I supposedly didn’t believe in such things - had taken it for a sign. I told Gillian that, and look where it had fucking got me. I wonder when I can go. I realise I don’t want to.

“Can it do the phone? I’ve got a mate whose parrot does phone rings on request.”

“That’s kinda cool.”

“It is. They do say that the larger birds have the intelligence of a 6 year old, with the patience of a two year old.” She says.

“That sounds right. You still watching those nature things?”

“Discovery and National Geographic seem to be on a loop in my house. I think the kids hardly ever watch kids TV. They never read fiction, it's all earthquakes and tornados with them.” A silence falls, and for a moment neither of us knows what to say.

“It’s a pity that we have mutual friends,” I hear myself say. “Otherwise we could talk about what we’ve been up to.”

“Yeah, Scotty fills me in on your exploits. He even took me to one of your gigs with your latest band. I have to say, I was impressed.”

I’m kind of gobsmacked. “He never mentioned that.”

“He also mentioned that you’d taken up stock-car racing or something, but I've not seen that.”

“I’m not very good at it, but that’s not the point.” I’m still trying to get over that she’d seen me on stage. I couldn’t have returned the favour, because Carlotta had quit singing completely. She’d gone into song-writing and production, working alongside Scotty.

“Yeah, I get it.” She’s smiling. The waiter has come with our order. “You still eat Italian?”

“Yep - try it,” she says, holding out her fork to me. I hesitate for a moment, then slowly eat the fusili or whatever the fuck it is from the fork. She looks uncomfortable. It was the same look she’d had on her face when she told me she was pregnant, and we were finished.

“It’s nice,” I say, quietly.

“I suppose it is,” she says. She won’t look me in the eye. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“What am I really doing here?” She asks, all seriousness now.

“That’s a question for your conscience, not mine.”

“OK, then, why are you really here?” She continues with her dinner. “Don’t give me shit about issues.”

“I never...the way we split...it never felt like it ended,” I reply, finally. “I never got closure.”

“That’s so fucking American!” She snorts and it really irritates me. I’d forgotten that, how she could be self-absorbed, selfish, dismissive of everything that wasn’t to do with her. Carlotta had been a drama queen. I’d hated it at the time, and lookee, I'd gone for another drama queen.

At least Carlotta had been sure of herself, and not a smothering limpet like Gillian. But, still. “You fucked around from the day we met,” I snarl. “You owe me more than what I got.”

“I’d have thought that when your slut of a lover tells you she’s up the stick, and doesn’t know who the father is, and you’re dumped, was closure enough.”

“You never gave me a chance!” I snap back. People look over, to Carlotta’s horror. “You have changed. Ten years ago, you’d have loved this.”

“That was a long time ago, and you should get that fact through your head.”

“I can’t,” I say, quietly. “I can’t move on. You took something from me, and until I get it back, I'm frozen.”

Carlotta shakes her head helplessly. “I’m sorry about how I treated you. I can’t say more than that.”

“It’s not enough.” I feel like crying and I'm sure my voice has cracked. “Have you ever cheated on Roy? I need to know!”

She shakes her head. “Never.”

“Why not?”

“I love him. I don’t want to lose him.” She’s looking at me now. 

The same way she used to look at me when she was begging me not to leave, she’d never cheat again, and I'd want so badly to believe her, that sometimes I almost did. “You loved me, and it didn’t stop you. You did, didn’t you!?”

“I never lied about that.”

“Then why? What’s different about him? Wouldn’t he take you back if you did? I always took you back. I still would,” and I can’t believe I've said it until it’s out my mouth. Milk, consider yourself spilt.

Carlotta stares at me, horrified, and no small amount of pity in her eyes. “I could tell you I'm sorry, and it would be true. But we were not meant to be together, I'd done too much to you. I needed to be on my own with my child. I never expected to meet anyone, but I did.”

“You weren’t supposed to be on your own. You were supposed to be with me. I would have been a good father to Christian.” This was so like every past encounter. Carlotta committed the sin and I found myself paying for it. She was in the wrong and I was one begging her not to go. Pulling any reason I could out my ass to make her stay. “I was going to say that to you, but you went too quick.”

“There was no point in waiting round. Made my decision.”

“You didn’t have the right to make it for me!” I snap. People are looking over again.

“Is that what this is about? I got in first?” She leans back, away from me.

“No! I wish to god I had, you selfish bitch!” 

She gets up, flings some money on the table. “Not a problem,” she replies and walks off. I throw some more on the table - I hope it covers the bill - and run out after her. 

“Carlotta!” I yell at her retreating figure. I run after her, puffing as I do so. I wish I’d given up smoking when I heard she had. Christ, she was fast. I grab hold of her arm for the second time that night. “I’m sorry. I never dragged you out for a slanging match. I just wanted to get some things of my cheat. I just never realised I had so much chest.”

Carlotta actually laughs. I smile. I’d used to joke before when she pulled this kind of stunt. “All I can say in my defence was that at the time, I was young. Too bloody young. I was 16 when we met, 20 when we split. You were ten years older. Maybe you should have known better, but part of me wanted the security you gave me, but I wanted to see other people as well. I’ll admit it. I loved cheating on you, loved the thrill, trying not to get caught.”

“I knew about most of them,” I say. “I didn’t care. I mean, it hurt. It felt like you were tearing my heart out, every time. It never went.”

Carlotta says nothing.

“I held on, for one reason, and one reason only. I knew it was because you were young, and you had to sow your wild oats. I figured eventually you’d get it out your system, and I'd still be there, and we’d settle down together. I knew you’d get knocked up, it would make you settle faster. You baby would have been mine.” I pause, and Carlotta looks infinitely sad. “Instead, you got pregnant all right, but you left, and you did settle. With someone else. And that’s what you took from me. You stole the dream of my family from me. And you stole it twice, because I can never have it, now.”

“None of this would have made a difference to me, then, if that helps. I’d made up my mind. You’d not have talked me out of it.” She says, gently.

“You never gave me the chance. You always made all the fucking decisions for us. This one wasn’t yours to make.” I reply.

Carlotta shakes her head. “It was, and you know it. You knew what I was like, and for whatever reason, you stayed. We’re both as much to blame.”

“No,” I shake my head. Denial. “You can’t blame me for this.”

“I don’t blame anyone, it’s no one’s fault sometimes it’s like that. But not wallowing in self-pity like this? That is your fault.” It makes it worse that she speaks gently. I’d rather she screams at me. “You say I've been fucking up your life for the past ten years? Well, who let me? If it was so terrible, why are you letting me fuck up your marriage?”

“I love you! That’s why!” 

Carlotta shakes her head. “Some of that’s true, but you’ve got a martyr complex. You love to suffer, makes you feel. You need to live on the edge, that’s why physically you race cars, and emotionally you date Drama Queens. It was exhausting being around that all the time, and I left you because I didn’t want my baby brought up around that. At the time we were right for each other, but we outgrew each other. It happens.”

“No, that’s not true, it didn’t happen like that!” I shake my head, refuting her statement.

Carlotta takes my face in her hands. “Listen to me. We loved each other, that’s true. But it didn’t work out. Keep lying to yourself if it makes you feel better. Leave your wife if your marriage is unhappy, but don’t do it for me or anyone else. I’m not responsible for your actions.”

She reaches up, and kisses me. “Besides, the point is not to be the love of someone’s life; the point is to be the last love of someone’s life.”

She walks off into the night. She doesn’t look back. I slump down on one of the benches that lined the sidewalk here. Well, I guess I got my closure. Though I don’t know where that leaves me.

I must have sat there for a good few hours, just thinking, not really getting anywhere. Eventually I notice the sky is getting light, so I slowly get up, and walk back to the hotel.


End file.
